Comedian Brooks recounts hiking from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail in her funny and endearing debut. In 2003, when Brooks was 25 and working at a nonprofit in Chicago, her best friend, Erin, called to tell her she was making the 2,200-mile trek. “I decided I was jealous,” Brooks writes. “Without any idea of how I would make it work... I called Erin back. ‘I’m coming with you.’ And just like that, my life changed course.” Erin and the decidedly unathletic Brooks began at the base of Springer Mountain, and from there, Brooks documents their trip stop by stop, recounting the people they met (including Brooks’s eventual husband, Ben, whom the pair encountered in Virginia) and dangers they faced (Erin, a diabetic, got a scare when her backpack knocked off her insulin pump). Brooks’s tone is chatty but thoughtful—with plenty of asides about how the trip improved her self-confidence—and wry enough to keep the proceedings from dipping into self-help platitudes (Brooks composes a song called “We Will Rock You (aka Pennsylvania Sux)” while trudging through the trail’s “dreary,” rock-filled Rust Belt portion). Couch potatoes and devoted hikers alike will find entertainment and inspiration here. (Sept.)

Reviewed on 08/02/2024 | Details & Permalink

This riveting legal thriller from historian Cobb (The Great Oklahoma Swindle) opens up a “Pandora’s box containing vital questions about land ownership... and oil wealth” in modern-day Oklahoma. Cobb tracks a series of turn-of-the-20th-century court cases involving a Muscogee boy named Tommy Atkins, showing that three different women claimed to be the deceased Tommy’s mother—each clandestinely supported, as demonstrated via Cobb’s superb historical sleuthing, by different oilmen hoping to gain drilling rights over Tommy’s inherited, oil-rich allotment. Cobb’s investigation ends up shedding disturbing light on the legacy of Tulsa founding father Charles Page, the progenitor of what is today “one of Oklahoma’s most renowned philanthropies,” who made his fortune by backing the “mother” who finally won out. But the path to victory wasn’t simple; that “mother” was investigated by the U.S. government for fraudulent impersonation. While the case grew in complexity (several other impersonators emerged), the Justice Department concluded behind the scenes, as detailed in records uncovered by Cobb, that Tommy was an invention of Page’s; this internal revelation of outsized fraud so rocked the country’s burgeoning oil industry, Cobb discovers, that it led to what he explosively describes as a 1915 kidnapping of the Muscogee chief by shadowy federal agents, likely working for President Woodrow Wilson, who forced him to sign documents supporting Page’s claim. Cobb’s narrative is propelled by a wide-eyed sense of the enormity of the scandal (“You’ve stepped in some deep shit,” one fellow researcher tells him). It’s an astonishing exposé. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/02/2024 | Details & Permalink

An Afghan woman’s journey from her war-torn homeland to life as “an alterations lady to the wealthiest women” in Scottsdale, Ariz., is recapped in this sonorous but disconcerting debut from journalist Miller. Lailoma Shahwali grew up in Kabul during the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s and the country’s civil wars in the ’90s. She experienced violence firsthand, including surviving the Taliban’s 1996 bombing campaign against Kabul, recollections of which open the narrative with gruesome lyricism: “The stench of blood pervaded the air. Sometimes she found a body part, but knowing who it belonged to was often hard to tell.” That same year, Shahwali witnessed the murder her husband by the Taliban. Miller’s account, while sumptuously written, has oddities in its approach. Among them is that framing Shahwali as an everywoman feels disingenuous, given that her husband was “a highly placed general” in the Soviet-backed government; and that Miller can come off as condescending in the way she handles profiling someone she met working in a customer service role (Miller frequents the Neiman Marcus where Shahwali works). For example, after the opening bombing scene, Miller pivots to an account of Shahwali winning an employee-of-the-year award, presenting it as an almost equally emotional moment (“Lailoma’s heart thundered in her chest, and she realized she was holding her breath”). This falls short of the mark. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/02/2024 | Details & Permalink

Biographer Strouse (Alice James) intricately sketches the longtime relationship between painter John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) and a wealthy Jewish family in early 20th-century Britain. After being commissioned by art dealer Asher Wertheimer, Sargent spent nearly a decade painting Asher, his wife, and their 10 children. In 1923, the portraits were exhibited in the National Gallery, where the display of “wealthy, London-born Jews of German descent” alongside “Anglo-Saxon aristocrats” elicited mixed reactions. Members of the House of Commons petitioned for their removal, and some of Asher’s associates took “offense” at the frank depiction of his traditionally “Jewish” features, but one art critic characterized the subjects’ wealth and “beauty” as emblematic of the times. Strouse situates the family against the backdrop of a society in which aristocrats’ fortunes were declining, while new fortunes, including those belonging to Jewish families, were “reorder[ing] the transatlantic social landscape.” Nevertheless, Strouse notes, a “profound sense of otherness” characterized the Jewish experience in Britain and reflected a complicated clash between the old and the new that accelerated as the century wore on. The result is a nuanced portrait of a world in flux. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/02/2024 | Details & Permalink

Food writer Jacobsen (Truffle Hound) traces in this thrilling chronicle chocolate’s “dark journey from regional delicacy to industrial commodity” and recent efforts to restore its original varietals. The tradition of drinking roasted cacao beans took hold about 4,000 years ago across South America, where the beans were so valuable they were sometimes used as currency. Spain conquered Mexico in the 16th century and spread the delicacy through Europe and the new world, fueling the cultivation of “new hybrid varieties” that were less flavorful but hardy and productive enough to meet the growing global demand; by the start of the 20th century, those “bulk beans” made up 95% of the world cacao production. Tracking the movement to revive heirloom chocolate, Jacobsen spotlights enterprising chocolate makers who scour the globe for new sources of “specialty cacao”; members of sustainability nonprofits working with Amazonian cacao farmers; and “choconerds” who popularize specialty chocolate bars via stores and websites. In the process, he draws out the complex global connections—and, often, corporate harms—underpinning the chocolate industry without losing sight of its pleasures (“There was a flash of bliss, a momentary bolstering, as if the gods had my back.... I felt a wormhole open,” he writes of his first time eating an heirloom chocolate bar). Readers will be eager to sink their teeth into this. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/02/2024 | Details & Permalink

Novelist and playwright Levy (August Blue) delivers a dazzling collection of musings on art, aging, psychoanalysis, celebrity car crashes, and more. The stylish essays—some as brief as one page—run the gamut from funny reflections on the Mona Lisa (“Her hair looks uncared for under her hood. She probably has lice”) and oral sex (“a super sport that should be included in the Olympic games”) to weightier considerations of the human tendency to look away from discomfort. Of model and photographer Lee Miller, whose career took her from fashion runways to documenting the liberation of Buchenwald, Levy writes, “she both hides from and gives herself to the camera.” Taken together, Levy’s extraordinary observations (eggs are “sculptures” that “have the added uncanny allure of being an artwork that is made inside the body of a hen”) amount to a trip through a consciousness trained to deeply consider everything it encounters—be it a pair of shoes, a bowl of lemons, or the work of Simone de Beauvoir. “There is the story and then there is everything else,” Levy posits. Here, she gives space to everything else, with sublime results. Readers will be grateful for this generous peek inside a singular mind. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 08/02/2024 | Details & Permalink

The Republican Party is waging a “frantic gaslighting campaign” to “rewrite the stories that have unfolded over the last several years,” according to this illuminating account from Benen (The Impostors), a producer of The Rachel Maddow Show. Pointing to polls showing that “a majority of Republican voters [believe] that Trump made no effort to overturn the 2020 election,” among other misbeliefs that absolve Donald Trump from wrongdoing and exaggerate his successes as president, Benen delves into how the Republican playbook of “historical revisionism” has evolved in recent years to make such lies possible to perpetuate. While much of it comes down to Trump’s habitual lying and self-aggrandizing being repeated as fact on right-leaning outlets like Fox News, Benen also spotlights Republican politicians who have entered Trump’s alternate reality and begun generating their own pro-Trump spin, like Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who claimed the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were “fake Trump protesters,” and New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who asserted that the FBI’s search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago was part of a “hoax.” While Benen, true to form, spends slightly too much time on Russia-related events, his account is well sourced and covers a lot of ground. This cogent survey of the Trumpist lie factory is worth checking out for more than just fans of Maddow. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 08/02/2024 | Details & Permalink

Schoch (The Secrets of Happiness), a professor of drama at Queen’s University Belfast, pays affectionate tribute to the late composer Stephen Sondheim and the lessons his musicals offer. Covering the full span of Sondheim’s career on Broadway, Schoch posits that Louise’s break from her domineering mother to become a burlesque dancer in 1959’s Gypsy teaches audiences to live for themselves; that Bobby’s apparent victory over his fear of intimacy in the final minutes of 1970’s Company reminds viewers that “love isn’t there to make our lives less frightening... it’s there, if we can find it... to give us more life”; and that 1979’s Sweeney Todd forces spectators to grapple with the banality of evil. Here We Are, which was posthumously staged in 2023, reveals that beauty can be found in the unfinished or improvised—as in life itself, Schoch argues, since the “wild, wondrous mystery of ourselves won’t ever be fully revealed.” While some of Schoch’s interpretations can feel like a stretch, he illuminates with appealing and unbridled enthusiasm how Sondheim plumbed the depths of human experience. Musical theater lovers will be delighted. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 08/02/2024 | Details & Permalink

“I hope you’ll feel encouraged to try some new things—I think you’ll surprise yourself at how easy it really is,” writes fitness influencer Allibhai in her solid debut. Her Indo-East African heritage shines through a majority of the recipes, including East African biryani (a mixed rice dish and “the ultimate party food”), muthiya (veggie stew with dumplings), and kuku paka (coconut chicken curry with potatoes). She also includes an assortment of meals inspired by other parts of the world, notably one-pot pasta with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes, salmon teriyaki bowls, and roasted butternut squash and beet soup. Throughout, Allibhai makes modifications to her dishes to support a healthier lifestyle, incorporating sweet potatoes into brownies “to increase the fiber and nutrition content” and using cashews instead of dairy in tomato soup. Instructions are easy to follow and complete with helpful time-saving tips (marinated chicken tikka can be stored in the freezer for up to four months to be cooked another time). Muslim readers will especially appreciate Allibhai’s guide to a healthy Ramadan, where she notes that when breaking fast, eating slowly “will make such a huge difference in the way you feel for the rest of the night.” It’s an inviting collection of healthy and crowd-pleasing meals. (Aug.)

Reviewed on 08/02/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this well-researched debut, historian Arrington succeeds in “lift[ing] the veil of anonymity” that he argues has “long hidden” the civil rights gains achieved by residents of the small town of Laurel, Miss. Beginning in 1832 with the town’s establishment as a lumber camp and preceding through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the 1960s civil rights movement to the present day, Arrington spotlights how Laurel’s Black community has come together to fight organized white supremacy (including a local Klan outpost established at the turn of the 20th century). These efforts included pushing for voting rights and the right to unionize in the 1950s and ’60s; battling for school desegregation, which extended well into the ’70s and ’80s; and challenging a corrupt legal system in the ’80s and ’90s. Arrington highlights how often Laurel was visited by national figures, such as Martin Luther King Jr., who saw the community as fertile ground for combatting segregation, and how the town saw many of its young people go on to leadership positions within the movement at the state and national levels. While the huge amount of minutiae might be difficult to sift through for outsiders, Mississippians will find this a thorough and enlightening overview of local civil rights history. (Self-published)

Reviewed on 08/02/2024 | Details & Permalink